The Global Law Summit

Skarbek – in support of its rapidly developing legal practice – was proud to sponsor the Global Law Summit, which marked the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. The Summit, which took place in London from 22-25 February, brought together 2 000 senior delegates from 111 countries. These included senior figures from government, judiciary, advocacy, law firms and academia. The UK was represented by – among others – the Minister of Justice, Lord Chief Justices, Attorney Generals and the Mayor of London. Major international speakers included the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan and the US Attorney General. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi spoke to the Summit by video-link.

Women in Law

On the first day of the summit, Skarbek partnered with Women in Law London (WILL) on a well-attended and well-received panel session on gender diversity in law entitled ‘Women in Law: the pipeline is broken. Why this matters, and what can be done’, It was chaired by Catrin Griffiths, Editor of The Lawyer, and included Philip Goodstone, Partner at EY; Sylvie Watts, Board Member of Skarbek Associates; Sascha Grimm, Associate at Cooley (UK) LLP and WILL Chair; Tamara Box, Partner and Global Chair of the Financial Industry Group at Reed Smith; and Sophie Chandauka, Head of Asset Financing for Virgin Money Group and Co-Founder of the Black British Business Awards.

Polling

The session opened with a live poll revealing that 64% of the audience believed that women do not have as good a chance as men in reaching senior levels of leadership in law. However 97% of the audience agreed that having more equal representation at the top of the profession improves competitiveness and sustainability. Sylvie Watts emphasised the damaging impact of not addressing this issue. “Law firms are currently losing a lot of women at a critical point. This dilutes the pool from which partners are being chosen and dilutes it from a qualitative point of view… new technology and changing demographics means that law firms are going to have to review their model and structure or risk becoming outmoded entirely.”

The Facts

Current statistics on women in senior levels within the legal profession identified the issue as one of promotion, not attrition. For the past 23 years, women have made up the majority of all entrants into the legal profession and currently make up 61% of all lawyers under the age of 36.[1] However, in 2014, only 28.5% of partnership promotions went to women. Tamara Box said “Whilst there is a seismic shift in the dialogue around the diversity issue taking place, this is a multifaceted problem and it will need multifaceted solutions to address it. The current business model is broken and it will have to change.”

What Can be Done

The discussion, both energetic and positive throughout, addressed a number of solutions that the panelists suggested for both young women coming into the profession, as well as those senior leaders in the sector today. These included reverse mentoring, unconscious bias training, informing clients of job sharing initiatives, promoting positive stories of women at senior level and making gender targets part of the business’s key metrics. “Management need to wipe all assumptions about the women in front of them and start afresh with new conversations, focused on changing the rhetoric around diversity in the legal profession from a negative to a positive one” said Sascha Grimm.

Discussion and Conclusions

There was an active Q&A session with the audience, with comments from male and female senior partners at major commercial law firms, global General Counsels and leaders of national legal bodies. The panel summarised the gaping holes currently in place eating away at the legal profession. The closing remarks by Sophie Chandauka emphasised that both women and law firms need to work on addressing their strategy if they hope not to be made obsolete: “hope alone is not a strategy”.

The audience left the session aware of the significant challenge before them but with a positive change mentality, reiterated by the many attendees committing (via electronic voting) to incorporate some of the measures discussed within their own firms.

Diversify or Die

The Global Law Summit also saw the launch of a Skarbek White Paper by Sylvie Watts, entitled: ‘Diversify or Die: Law firms that do not address the root causes of gender diversity risk being made redundant’

The paper is available here Diversify or Die (PDF file download).

[1] The Law Society Annual Report 2014 591850 v1 2